Larsen to Obama: Get moving on Monument

President Obama should follow in the footsteps of Theodore Roosevelt and Bill Clinton, and use his authority to designate a new national monument in Washington, Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., said Monday.

In a letter to U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Larsen said it’s time for the administration to step in and preserve a 955-acre network of pristine places in the San Juan Islands.

Larsen

Larsen and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., have introduced bills to create a National Conservation Area.

“Partisan opposition to the movement of any public lands legislation” has blocked its passage in Congress, Larsen told Salazar. Under the 1906 Antiquities Act, Obama has the authority to designate a monument.

President Roosevelt used the newly passed act to designate an Olympic National Monument, protecting from extinction the Roosevelt Elk that bear his name. The monument was later expanded under Franklin D. Roosevelt to become one of America’s great national parks.

Clinton used the Antiquities Act in 2000 to create a Hanford Reach National Monument, protecting the only stretch of the Columbia River between Bonneville Dam and the Canadian border that hasn’t been dammed and turned into a reservoir. The river’s last big wild salmon run spawns there.

The monument includes bluffs north of the river and (accurately named) Rattlesnake Mtn. north of Richland. Its creation was bitterly opposed by agribusiness interests, local county commissioners and U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash.

(Hastings has bottled up the San Juans legislation in the House Natural Resources Committee, which he chairs.)

San Juan County Commissioners are, however, more enlightened than their Eastern Washington counterparts. They have endorsed either a National Conservation Area or monument: Last week, owners of 156 local and area businesses endorsed the proposal.

The Obama administration has compiled a weak record when it comes to protecting public lands.

President Carter campaigned to create 103 million acres of parks, monuments, wild rivers, wilderness areas and wildlife refuges in Alaska. President Reagan signed into law the Washington and Oregon Wilderness Acts, plus legislation creating the Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.

Clinton created big monuments in canyonlands of Utah and Arizona, protected the giant Sequoias of California, and created a monument in the historic Missouri Breaks of Montana.

By contrast, Obama has designated just 15,000 acres of monuments — chiefly Fort Ord in California.

The places designated for protection in the San Juans are under federal ownership. They include remote Patos Island, scenic Watmough Bight on Lopez Island, and bluffs around the Turn Pt. lighthouse on Stuart Island.

The San Juan lands are among 18 areas identified in a very modest Obama administration preservation proposal. Sec. Salazar paid a visit last year and talked to the locals.

“I appreciate your recent visit to this area to talk with my constituents about ways to protect these areas and your willingness to listen,” Larsen wrote to Salazar.